Trick or Treat
by Eccia
Summary: From skeleton costumes to trick or treating, Brennan will get over her funk of Halloween. A little OOC at the end, but that means a job well done. BB
1. Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Today, being Halloween, meant that scores of children would be in and out of the building, and everyone was required to be in the museum to hand out a handful of knowledge and candy. Mostly for the candy, but the knowledge came with it.

Everyone that was, except Dr. Brennan. And a certain agent was giving her grief for it.

"Come on Bones, do it for the kids. It's just a couple of hours," Booth reasoned.

"I have work to do, bones don't just identify themselves," she laughed and got up from her computer.

"They've been dead for hundreds of years, a few more days won't hurt them."

"But that's my job Booth, to identify bones, excuse me," she said, sliding past him and out of her office. He could be a real pain sometimes.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back for a minute, "Are you still coming over tonight to go trick-or-treating with Parker and me?" The agent asked the question in a more sincere tone than the rest of the conversation. He had already promised the boy that she would be there, and couldn't imagine telling him that 'Dr. Bones' wouldn't be making it that evening.

"If I finish up here, I'll be over," she looked into his eyes for a minute before walking away.

They had taken their relationship from partners to really good friends recently, seeing each other more outside of work and in relaxed situations. It was working out okay, except for Dr. Brennan taking on extra hours to get more "work" done. Booth sighed and went to meet the rest of the squints in the museum to give out candy to kids, only hoping that Brennan would crawl out of her hole and join them. It was doubtful, but there was never anything against hope.

Dr. Brennan looked over the skeleton on her lab table, not being able to take her mind off of Booth. He could be a pain sometimes, she had to admit, and this was one of them. How could she possibly get any work done with him making her feel so bad for doing so.

"Is she coming?" Angela asked, seeing Booth approach.

"No, she has work to do," Booth replied, sounding a little down.

"She does not. She's making up excuses," Angela complained, "She doesn't have to do anything, it all could easily be done tomorrow. In fact, I am going to make her leave the lab," Angela said and turned around, thinking up an excuse to reenter the lab and grill her best friend.

She looked up as she heard footsteps grow louder, approaching the lab. "Sweetie, you have a perfectly decent guy asking, begging you to spend a little time with him, and you want to spend time with the dead. Drop the bone and step away from the lab table, you are leaving even if I have to drag you out of here myself," Angela said, approaching the platform.

"These cases, I need to get them done," Brennan argued, but did as she was told.

"Sweetie, they were dead yesterday, they were dead fifty years ago, they will still be dead tomorrow, but tomorrow you might not have a piece of man meat drooling over you. I get the whole my parents left me thing, but you have the opportunity here to make one little kid very happy. Leave, go get a Halloween costume, put it on, be at Booth's by six and cheer up a little boy who adores you very much. You can cheer up the big boy later," Angela smirked.

"Booth and I are just friends. I don't want to intrude on his time with his son. It's important to him," she defended, not wanting to admit that maybe she was wrong.

"He asked you to join him. He's down about you staying up here. There's clearly something there, and I think it's worth investigating. You're important to him too. Since you're going around children, you can't be anything too dirty, but the perfect costume for you would be a skeleton. Go, find a costume and surprise him," Angela said, before turning around and leaving Dr. Brennan to her own thoughts.

Admitting defeat, Dr. Brennan grabbed her jacket, keys and purse and headed out of the lab in search of a costume shop to take Angela's advice. Go as a skeleton. Seemed simple enough, but what Dr. Brennan did not know is how many last minute shoppers there were at Halloween.

Mothers with whiny children gathered around the store, and Brennan only heard pieces of conversation, "I CANNOT be Princess Jasmine, Erica is Princess Jasmine, what's wrong with you mother?" one blonde little girl screamed to her left as she went past children's costumes.

"I want to be a fairy princess, not a princess fairy," another girl complained at the costume selection, "I was a princess fairy last year." Brennan smiled to herself, not exactly understanding the difference between a 'princess fairy' and a 'fairy princess' but it was cute that the girl thought it was that important.

Finally making it past the whiney, annoying and the occasional good child, Dr. Brennan found the adult costumes, many of them with sexual innuendo completely missed by the doctor.

Having no luck finding the suggested costume, she approached an employee with her question, and sadly, the store had no adult skeleton costumes. Neither did the next five. She contemplated calling Angela and asking for a different costume choice, but amazingly the seventh store did have one, literally one, skeleton costume, and by some power greater than herself, it was her size. Checking her watch, she quickly grabbed the accessories to match and some face paint and headed to the checkout.

"Hey Ange, I need a favor," Dr. Brennan called her best friend as she was leaving the costume store.

"If you're not in the hospital dying, well, I don't think I can help you there either, but what is it?" the artist asked, thinking the anthropologist was still in the lab.

"I need you to draw a skull on my face, to go with my costume. I went to seven different Halloween stores and found that costume-"

"Ah, sweetie, why didn't you say so, I'll be right over," she squealed, hanging up as Dr. Brennan got in her car and started weaving her way through D.C. traffic to get to her apartment before Angela.

"There, perfect," the artist announced after about an hour of working on the doctor's face, "and you have to promise not to say anything is atomically incorrect before I show you," the artist warned.

"Fine, I promise," the doctor obeyed and the artist handed her a hand mirror.

"Don't touch anything, it'll smudge. I need to do your hair, just because you're a skeleton, doesn't mean you can't be a hot skeleton," Angela mused, running her fingers through her friend's hair thinking of something to do with it.

"Skeletons don't have hair, Ange, and your skull doesn't look half bad. I'm impressed," Dr. Brennan complimented.

"Well, at least let me pull it back so that stupid hat doesn't look as bad," Angela complained, looking at the headpiece that came with the costume, it looked more like a hood than a hat, and it attached to the one-piece costume.

"Fine, just hurry up, I need to be at Booth's soon," Brennan smiled.

"What's the change of attitude?" Angela asked, a little curious with a brush in hand.

"I've realized that I want Booth in my life, he's a good friend, and Parker isn't such a bad kid."

"All done," Angela smiled at her fully skeletonized friend and smiled, "Have fun tonight. Don't analyze until after you get home, then I want all the juicy details." Angela was practically pushing her friend out of the door, leaving the whole 'getting ready' mess behind, not that Angela would clean it up, but knew it would give Brennan an excuse to stay.

Dr. Brennan arrived at Booth's house a little earlier than he would have expected her, had he not seen her attitude towards Halloween this morning.

"I'll get it," she could hear Parker from inside the house when she knocked. She could also hear larger footfalls following the boy, obviously Booth not wanting his son to open the door to strangers. "Dr. Bones!" he smiled, seeing the doctor on the other side of the door. "Look daddy, Dr. Bones is… bones for Halloween!" The boy started laughing, "Guess who I am, Dr. Bones, guess!" Parker was really excited for Halloween, especially since he was spending it with his dad this year. He stood back, and put his fists to his hips and stuck his chest out a little.

"Hmm," Dr. Brennan pretended to think, "You're superman!" she guessed, receiving another shocked look from Booth.

"Come in, we're going to head out soon," Booth said, opening the door and allowing his friend in. "I thought you weren't coming."

"Changed my mind," she said simply, and took a seat on the couch at Parker's insistence so he could tell her about Superman and why he had chosen that particular superhero.

"Hey Parker, why don't you go use the bathroom, I don't want you complaining halfway through," Booth suggested to get the boy out of the room. He grumbled for a minute, but did anyway. "Nice costume," Booth commented.

"Angela's idea. She did a good job, sorry about earlier, in the lab. Halloween reminds me of the things I couldn't have as a kid, I never went trick-or-treating, dressed up, all that fun stuff. Now I understand why, my parents were felons and it would pretty much be open house for something to happen-"

"I get it, it's okay, I'm just glad you came. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain to Parker that you weren't coming, he's been going on all night about how he wanted to show you his costume. Now I don't have to," he smiled.

At that moment Parker rejoined the pair, "Daddy, can you tie my cape on, please? Please!" The kid was clearly excited.

Booth stood and grabbed the cape from the back of the couch and attached it to the child, "All right, Bones, let's go!" Booth herded the pair out the door and made sure to lock it.

A couple hours later the trio was back, with about two pounds of candy.

"Thanks for coming Dr. Bones. It was fun," Parker said when they returned home. He went over to the table and started dumping out his loot.

"Parker, I think it's bedtime," Booth said, knowing what was coming.

"Please dad, just a few pieces," the boy put on a smile identical to his father's.

"Brush your teeth, pajamas, say goodnight to Bones," Booth said, shockingly immune to that look.

"Good night, Dr. Bones," the boy said, getting up from the table.

"Good night, Parker. Thank you for inviting me. I guess I should go," Brennan smiled, pointing at the door.

"Stay, I'm sure there's a horror movie starting soon."

"All right, let me go wash this off of my face," Dr. Brennan said, referring to the skull paint. In reality, she wanted to get out of the whole costume, but it's not like she looked that far ahead and brought a change of clothes. She got off the ouch and headed to the bathroom to scrub the paint off.

She fell asleep there, on the couch, wearing a FBI t-shirt and sweatpants, in Booth's arms, watching a horror flick. She awoke to a hyper five-year-old trying to shove as much candy into his mouth before his father awoke. That was how her Halloween went. And as she lay there, in his arms, for the first time she felt comfortable, and no thought of flight went through her head, but thoughts of happiness. Maybe Angela was right. Gosh she hated it when Angela was right. With a smile on her face, she slid out of Booth's arms to join the five-year-old in a bowl of candy cereal.


	2. Epilouge

Epilogue

Five Years Later

Ten-year-old Parker ran around the Halloween store looking for the perfect costume. This year he wanted to be a pirate. Booth was assigned the job of finding that perfect costume for the boy. "Dad, can I be a ghost pirate?" Parker asked, looking at the variety of costumes.

"Don't you want to be a normal pirate?" Booth asked, wondering why he would want to be a 'ghost pirate'.

"No, that's not scary enough," Parker stated, someone had been hanging around Dr. Bren- Dr. Booth for a little too long.

They were approaching their five year anniversary, and the skeptics, even they were starting to believe how much people can change. The close friends, they were happy to see Tempe so happy. No one had ever seen her so happy and carefree, and it was actually pleasurable. The old Tempe was gone.

"You don't want to be too scary," Booth argued, but still wanted to give his son the freedom to choose his own costume.

"Please, ghost pirate," the boy said, giving Booth the famous 'Booth charm smile'. Tempe chose that time to join the pair.

"Let him. Let him be a ghost pirate. Sammy and Riles know that under the costume and make-up it's Parker. It'll be fun," she placed a hand on his arm and he relaxed.

"All right, be a ghost pirate," Booth conceded and the happy ten-year-old ran off down the aisle. "I'll be there in a minute," Booth called after him. He placed a kiss on his wife's lips, receiving a duo of 'ewws' from below the four foot line.

"Sam is going to be a FBI agent," Tempe announced, looking down at their four-year-old, "and Riley is going to be a princess," she looked over to the three-year-old, "And surprise is going to be a pumpkin," she laughed, pointing to her extended stomach. Together with Angela, the pair would be painting their rather large stomachs orange and giving them faces. She called the unborn baby 'Surprise' because neither wanted to know the gender. Angela was having a little girl. She was going to go the surprise route, but after her triplets, all boys, she really wanted a girl, and couldn't wait any longer to find out.

Booth smiled and ruffled the boy's hair, "That's great, taking after your dad, okay, I need to go get Parker," he placed a quick kiss on Tempe's forehead and was off down one of the aisles.

"All right, let's go find accessories for your costumes," Tempe said, taking one child in each hand and heading off in the other direction. Halloween was their holiday. Most people thought their decorations, costumes, and enthusiasm for the holiday was a little over the top, but once hearing the story, its understandable.

Two days later, they attended Angela's Halloween party. The kids were dressed up in their costumes, running around the big backyard. Tempe and Angela sat in lawn chairs watching them, while the males 'bonded'.

"Everyone, I have an announcement," it was Zack, hitting his paper cup with a plastic fork. "Well, we have an announcement," the smile grew across the face as he brought his new wife, Annabelle, closer to him.

Annabelle was hardly a squint. She's a preschool teacher and devotes her time to children and their needs. Something about the geeky squint had caught her eye, his childish sense of wonder, his playful personality, the boyish looks, maybe all of the above. No one quite understood how Zack, yes Zack, of all people scored such a hottie. For a preschool teacher, Annabelle could have been in the photo for every month on the Preschool Teacher of the Month calendar.

"We're going to have a baby," he announced to the crowd that he now commanded attention of.

"Congrats, Zack," Hodgins said, giving his friend a good whack on the back. "I'll get started on the bomb shelter. Just to be safe," he laughed.

"Well, I guess this is where I bring out the tummy paint, and we get three Jill-o-lanterns this year," Angela smiled, getting up from her seat and waddling into the house.

Riley came running up to Tempe and threw her arms around as much of her as she could and planted a big wet kiss as high as she could reach.

"What was that for, Riles?" Tempe asked, looking down at the little girl. Though the girl favored herself more than her partner, when she smiled, that was all Booth.

"Because I wanted to, and I love you, and I'm happy that you're my mommy, and I wanna stay up until eight-thirty," she said, giving the smile. Yes, that smile. The Booth charm smile.

"Why Riley Booth, I'm honored to be your mommy, and I love you to and the answer is no," she smiled back at the girl.

"Aww man," she tried to snap and stomp her foot at the same time, "Daddy told me for sure that would work. Oh well. I still love you. Bye!" she ran off, leaving Tempe with a smile on her face.

Smiling, that was definitely something she got used to with her new life. That, and happiness. And pregnancy hormones. She looked up to see Riley back with Booth, most likely discussing their previous conversation. Booth looked up and their eyes met. She shook her head and smiled. She watched him look down at the little girl, shake his head, then pick her up and start tickling her.

Yes, Booth's life had changed too. What he missed out on with Parker from being sent back and forth between Rebecca and himself, he definitely made up for in Sam. As for Riley, she was daddy's little girl and had him wrapped around her little finger. He wanted it no other way.

As another Halloween came to a close, three children were snuggled into their beds, trick-or-treat bags sitting in a line on the kitchen counter. Tempe lay in Booth's arms, held tightly and securely, like she did every Halloween, so he could protect her from the 'evils' in the Halloween horror flicks. They did that every year. It never got old, because when love is that strong, it shows even without words or fancy gestures. Just being in the other's presence is enough.

"When you first met me, during out first case, did you ever think that we'd turn out like this?" she asked Booth that Halloween night.

"Nope. Well, this is better. I figured we could be friends, but given the opportunity, I wouldn't trade this life for a million dollars."

"Me either," she replied contently, "me either. I love you." Those three words coming from her lips, they meant the world to him. Not just in their meaning, but the fact that she could get over her past, all the hurt and pain, and be able to freely say those words to another human, especially him, that's what meant the most.

"I love you too."


End file.
